


Afterword

by Drachenkinder



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 13:58:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14546214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drachenkinder/pseuds/Drachenkinder
Summary: Short reaction to Infinity Wars.   Inspired by Lise's "Everything sucks: The doors face north" and Jack London's "Love of Life"





	Afterword

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [everything sucks,the doors face north](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/379794) by lise. 



**Dusk**

The stars are hiding their faces behind the cold mist. No moon has ever graced this sky. No sun will dare to show its face. He walks through a world suspended in the ebb time. The emptiness reflected without and within. The barren fields stretch toward a blurred horizon. His feet catch on sharp grey stones, but he does not heed. He has no goal, no purpose. Naked in more than body, stripped of all reason to struggle, and tired beyond bearing. Yet he walks on. Stumbling on the broken ground. He wants to lie down, to let go, to sink into the nothingness and become it. But surrender is not in his nature. With nothing left to fight for, nothing left to fight against, he pits himself against the nothing and keeps going.

His memories have faded into the mist, his passions are dead, even his name is gone. All that is left is the striving. No reason, no purpose, only a sound without meaning echoes in what is left of his mind. A sound he says with every pointless aching resolute step.

Brother.

**Midnight**

Dark grey shadows surround him, whispering words that dissolve before he can grasp their portent. The faithless stars have deserted the night. He has fallen again. Bones aching, he climbs his own body to stand. One step, his legs so heavy his feet barely clear the ground. Two steps and his breath is a fire searing through his lungs. Three steps and his bloody toes clip a stone staggering him, his arms too slow to catch his balance, too slow to break his fall. He seems to fall forever hanging in the empty air. Then the ground slams into his knees, tears his forearms, punches his chin and rips across his chest. 

He pants and pushes up with arms that shake. Pulls his knees under him, sits up and tries to rise again. There is not enough strength in his thighs to lift his body upright and he falls back to his hands. To be done, to be finished would be a blessing. He lifts one hand and places it ahead on the stony ground. Lifts one knee and brings it forward. Other hand, other knee, Right then left. Crawling, this is what he is. This futile effort, this stubborn refusal to give up. He gasps his mantra in two parts now. Breath in… Bro, Breath out.. ther.

**The last breath of night**

Black within and black without. The night has eaten him or his eyes have failed, it matters not. Dull distant pain pulses in his flayed knees as he drags them forward, his shoulders throb as he forces each battered hand in turn to move. Only inches ahead. His arms give way and he lays full length on the cold lifeless earth. He arches his back and yet cannot break its hold. 

His hands burn as he claws his fingers into the unforgiving ground and pulls, pushing with his feet, with his knees, dragging himself forward. The skin peals in long scratches from his chest, his belly, and his thighs. His genitals numb from the trauma. Pain, blunted as it is, is his world now, pull, push breathe. Bro… ther.. it echoes and re-echoes as he drags himself toward the pale horizon.

He is worm, drying after a storm, squirming forward, covered in dirt and blood, his mouth dry, lips cracked and split. Instinctively fighting toward the ever retreating dawn.

The night splinters before the rising sun, shining and beautiful and impossible in this world without time. It mirrors his word, calls it, bellows it, rushing toward him in a burning blaze of golden light. Bro… ther .. Bro.. ther....

He is enveloped in its sparkling corona. Bro.. he wheezes 

“Brother” The sun says, rain falling from its face. 

…”thor”, he whispers as peace fills him, and the sun bears him skyward, wrapped in its glorious nimbus.

**Author's Note:**

> Short reaction to Infinity Wars. Inspired by Lise's "Everything sucks: The doors face north" and Jack London's "Love of Life"


End file.
